But no longer. Coleman has turned out to be a better campaigner than many thought and has gained strength by repeatedly contrasting his strong support for the President on Iraq with Wellstone’s long record of anti-defense votes. Underscoring the Coleman stance have been several fund-raising visits by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Although Minnesota’s same day registration favors the Democrats, Coleman now has the advantage. (Leaning Republican)
I'd love to believe this analysis, but on the ground here in Minnesota I'd say this is overly optimistic. I think Coleman has a good shot at winning this race, but I don't think he's the current favorite. I'd say it's leaning Democrat, but narrowly. Most polls still show a Wellstone lead, but within the margin of error.
Both candidates have just begun truly saturating television with their ads in the past week. Wellstone is pushing hard on traditional Democrat economic themes (raising the minimum wage, government funded job training, targetted tax cuts), and the environment. His negative ads toward Coleman come across as clumsy, but may be effective nonetheless.
Coleman is running a very positive campaign. Pro-business, pro-growth, pro-family (one of his most frequent ads features his teenaged daughter talking about how great her dad is - sappy but very well put together for that sort of ad). His negative ads against Wellstone are disturbingly mild (until recently he barely mentioned Wellstone breaking his pledges to only serve two terms and refusal to ever take PAC money, even though Wellstone's ads were hammering Coleman for switching parties and *gasp* proposing tax cuts for "big business"). I don't see him drawing his connection to Bush in his television ads as strongly as some of the national articles seem to believe. Perhaps he's hitting this theme more strongly outside the Minneapolis metro area.
This is simply not a race anyone ought to take for granted. The last couple of weeks will swing this one way or the other, but neither candidate will run away with it.
In the past week, Coleman's mailings at least seem to be targeting some of these issues. One flyer shows a list of his 1990 promises compared to his actual performance in each area. Effective.
Last night Mr. Otta B got a call from some special interest group "reminding" him to vote for Wellstone (we've never figured out how he got on the DFL's mailing list). It was with great personal satisfaction that he informed the caller he would never vote for that liar and cheat.